


Too High A Price

by deerna



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Genji Shimada, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, pre-slash i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 06:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12205404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerna/pseuds/deerna
Summary: When Gabriel promised Genji - restless after eight weeks of surgery, upgrades and rehabilitation - to send him on a mission if he could beat him at hand to hand combat, he'd underestimated the ninja's desperation to get out of that hospital wing.Even though he wins the fight, Gabriel realizes that he's lost somewhere else.He should’ve known that Genji was going to get the wrong message from the arrangement.





	Too High A Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sidhedcv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidhedcv/gifts).



> First of all I'd like to thank my good friend [sidhedcv](https://twitter.com/sidhedcv) who paid for the first 300 words of this story. The other 900 are on the house because I love her to bits and she's the best ♥
> 
> There are tons of stories set during the Blackwatch era that are about McCree and Reyes, or about McCree and Genji, but I didn't really found anything about Gabe and Genji. So I wrote it! I hope that you like this.
> 
> I have a soft spot for Gabe being very invested in his men, but I hope he doesn't come across as _too_ much of a softie. He's still Blackwatch commander after all.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought about it!

Under different circumstances, the kid would’ve probably kicked his ass.

Genji Shimada was a warrior, endlessly trained in techniques that were both forgotten by the world and assimilated in hundreds of different fighting styles. Just because he wasn’t going to do his family’s work, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t carrying its heritage. 

Every time he lunged, every time he parred, every time he dodged, Gabriel could see hints of the poised elegance of someone who knew what it meant to train his skills to formal perfection; he could also see the frustration that flashed in Genji’s eyes every time his body didn’t do what it was supposed to do, every time he missed, every time he got hit. 

The rehabilitation wasn’t anywhere near complete, according to Angela, but Genji was getting restless. He’d been screaming his synthetic voice box out demanding to speak with someone who could get him out of that bed, out of the specialized hospital wing that had been set up for him, and Gabriel had conceded to give him a mission if he’d managed to beat him in a fight. 

He kinda regretted that. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be a fair fight to begin with; Gabriel had planned from the start to abuse of his super-soldier strength and flatten the ninja on the mat like a pancake, so he could scold him for his impatience and call it a day. But he also made the mistake to underestimate how much Genji wanted to get on the field. 

The fight was starting to wear the kid down; Gabriel was barely out of breath, courtesy of the shit that had pumped in his veins during his SEP trials, but he was getting worried. The longer it went on, the more careless Genji became; he was starting to throw himself with all his weight against Gabriel, finesse and technique forgotten in favour of brutal force. 

If it kept going like that he was going to hurt himself, and that simply wasn’t happening, not on Gabriel’s watch. “That’s it, we’re done,” he drawled. He dodged easily the last lunge with a sidestep, and proceeded to grab Genji and pinning him to the floor. 

The kid yelled something that didn’t sound very flattering at him as he struggled to free himself, but Gabriel didn’t have plans to let him up that easily, not when he still was so keyed up. 

Gabriel waited for him to stop muttering profanities before speaking. “Just so you know, you failed.” Genji tensed up beneath his hands. “But I’m really impressed by your attempt.” 

“Spare me your pity,” Genji rasped, voice shot to hell. 

“I’m not _pitying_ you, you dipshit,” Gabriel snarled. “You may have not seen me around, Shimada, but I’ve followed every step of your progress. You spent the last eight weeks relearning how to do things that most people learn by the time they’re five, including breathing and shitting. When I challenged you to beat me, I didn’t think you were even going to manage to walk to the middle of the room. I’m impressed, Genji, and I’m not easily impressed.”

“I’m still not going on a mission, though.” He sounded resigned, red eyes fixed unseeing on the ceiling, limbs slack in Gabriel’s grip. Defeat and death, when fight and determination burned through him only a few moments before. 

Gabriel resisted the urge to shake him, and took a deep breath. “My men get cleared for active duty only when they’re at their best. You still need time,” he said, then sighed. “You’re not dying on a mission because you were cleared before you were ready to be sent on one.” 

“What’s a single agent to an organization like Overwatch?” 

Shit _fuck_. “Don’t be stupid, kid. You’re not _disposable_.” 

Genji laughed. “Oh, right, I’m too expensive for that.” Gabriel felt his guts tie up in knots, but the ninja keep talking, oblivious. “Doctor Ziegler never stops telling me how sophisticated each upgrade to my body is. What would’ve been the point of putting me back together, if I go out and get myself killed? What a waste of resources-”

“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel muttered, actually letting go of Genji’s wrists so he could rub both hands down his face.

He should’ve known that Genji was going to get the wrong message from the whole thing.

Of course Blackwatch was going to use Genji Shimada and his abilities. There was no hiding that. But Gabriel hoped to do for him what he had been doing for young Jesse McCree: he hoped to drive home the fact that Blackwatch was his boss, but also a safety net of people that could be relied on, people that were going to help when he was in need, and that weren’t going to leave him behind or pick him off when he wasn’t needed anymore. 

He had forgotten that he wasn’t dealing with Jesse. They were similar in many ways, but Genji didn’t come from a life of scraps and luck. He couldn’t be swayed by three warm meals a day and a word of praise. 

“This body isn’t about winning,” Gabriel told him, and as long as it concerned _him_ and the reason he had greenlit the project, that was the truth. “This body is about living.” 

“You call _this_ living?” Genji yelled, a mess of static distorting his scream as the synthetic voice box was pushed to its limit. “My lungs and my stomach are fake. My _tongue_ is fake! Did you know that more than half of my flesh arm isn’t actually flesh? Angela was so excited when she told me,” he croaked a laugh. “The largest portion of 3D printed artificial skin ever produced.”

“Genji-”

“It’s really funny, if you think about it,” he kept talking as if he hadn’t been interrupted. A glossy sheen of tears was starting to wet his eyes. “Before- before. I planned to run, because I didn’t want to die. And now I spend all my waking hours wishing I was _dead_.” 

More than once, Gabriel had asked himself if he had been cruel, when he told Angela to do whatever it was in her power to make him survive; but then he remembered the kid’s eyes when Gabriel’s team got to him after his brother maimed him, and the way he stubbornly clung to life as half of his body succumbed to organ failure, and - only a moment before - the _fire_ in his eyes as he forced his new, unfamiliar artificial muscles to cooperate into landing a hit on him.

He’d wanted to see that again.

Gabriel gently cupped his cheek in one hand, thumb wiping the tears that had started running down the side of his face. His skin was surprisingly soft, given how scarred it was, and the artificial jaw felt rubbery-smooth, pleasant and warm under his palm. 

“If you’d wanted to die, you would’ve let your brother kill you eight weeks ago,” he said. 

Genji didn’t deny it. “I didn’t ask for this, either.” He grieved a life that he never wanted, a family whom he never loved, and he was given a second chance at a price too high for him to pay. 

Nothing that Gabe could’ve told him would have made him feel better. 

“I’m sorry.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello on [twitter](http://twitter.com/somewhatclear) or leave me a prompt on [tumblr](http://somewhatclear.tumblr.com)!


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